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Brumbana I
The first Sun of the constellation Brumbana is a young and mighty sun, radiating power in an aura of golden light and piercing radiation. Its potential was recognized early on by the servants of the Omnissiah and they began to enshrine Sidus Brumbana in a technological monument of titanic architecture. The Stellar Engine Brumbana Sidus Brumbana I is surrounded by the skeletal structure of one singular machine, a stellar engine under construction by the largest exclave of the Cult Mechanicus Cambria. Those servants of the machine god have dedicated the existence of several billion souls and untold legions of machines to an act of creation rarely seen in these parts of the galaxy since humanity’s fall from grace during the age of strife. The stellar engine Brumbana, the star-machine built upon the last of Cambria’s mining system, will at one point in the far future serve as a new world worthy of the Omnissiah, a technological marvel producing nigh unlimited energy, refining matter on a cosmic scale and offering to the servants of the Machine god the gift of insurmountable computation. Fifty-seven point three-five-nine percent of the construction has been completed near the end of the forty-first millennium. More than six millennia passed since the beginning of construction and more than once it was halted for centuries in times of crisis and war. But the tech-priests never ceased dreaming of their eternal purpose to finish this machine and along the way, it has already grown to be one of the most productive systems in all of Sector Gondwana. However, to the Cult of the Stellar Engine, the production of countless billions of lesser components, weapons, wargear, and industrial machines are barely secondary side-effects of the stellar engine’s construction. What they produce for the Imperium at large are but scraps left-over by the true purpose of the priesthood. The Cult of the Stellar Engine The priesthood devoted to the construction of the stellar engine is the largest exclave of the Cult Mechanicus Cambria, who in their adoration for the Ringworld’s structure sought to bring about the creation of a megastructure of their own. The Techpriests of the Stellar Engine see themselves first and foremost as creators, with the sole purpose to be conduits for the blessings of the Omnissiah to be bestowed upon all of humanity. The duties to reclaim and preserve ancient technologies are important tasks to them, but ones that should be taught to the common souls of humanity in their eyes, Instead of wasting the potential of the Mechanicus on such matters, it should be the duties of the Imperial Navy and the collective forces of the Imperium to seek out ancient technologies and knowledge and present them to the Forge Worlds of the Omnissiah as tithes for their license to use the Mechanicus’ machines. In the meantime, the techpriests of the Cult seek to do the Omnissiah’s highest work: To create machines following his most ancient designs. Star Sidus Brumbana I The system’s star burns at the heart of the machine, its light caught and redirected by cosmic mirrors to be devoured the system-wide machinery. The fusion fire of this star fuels the process of its capture, as more and more strands and rings of machinery are spun around its glowing form. Machina Mundi Orbiting closely around the burning star are vast technological realms. The Machina Mundi are thin shells constructed just above the star’s coronal sphere, feeding off its energy and growing ever more with the influx of resources for their construction. To organics, they are largely uninhabitable. Endless legions of shielded servitors and automata populate these realms instead, maintaining the machinery spanning a surface surpassing any planetary world in scope. Mundus Machina Aleph The innermost of the machine world form the stellar engine’s core of steel and mirrors. It is dedicated to the purpose of capturing the energy of the star in its various forms. First and foremost, it captures the visual light, casting a wide shadow over all the rest of the system. But the Mundus Machina Aleph also shields other spheres against the worst of the radiation and picks up exotic particles from the stellar wind. Mundus Machina Beth The second inner sphere of the stellar engine refines raw materials and utilizes both energy and resources for component production. Most of the local industry is devoted wholly to the furthering of the construction of the stellar engine, creating machine parts in accordance with the ancient designs foreseen by the Omnissiah. But Mundus Machina Beth also harbors great forges where the base-hulls for ships, engine components, and reactor shields are produced, to be shipped to distant fleet yards where shipwrights finish and sanctify the construction. Mundus Machina Ceph The currently outermost layer is Mundus Machina Ceph, a world still aglow with the orange hue of cooling metal. In this region, new plates and rings of the stellar engine are constructed and here the raw material from the bleeding worlds is captured and refined. To any mere organic human, it would be an industrial hellscape of cosmic proportions. But to the techpriests of the Cult of the Stellar Engine, this Mundus Machina is their hallowed home and the Great Work of all their existences. Planets The Remnant Fields of Praxis and Linnt The innermost mining worlds of the Brumbana I system haven been left as empty husks at the end of their service to the Omnissiah. In the totality of their industrial consumption, the might of the Machine God is more apparent than in any display of military might or rich splendor. Of Linnt, the first world to be entirely consumed remains little more than a shell of thin plates held together by global scaffolding. The entirety of the industrial complex was stripped of non-essential machinery, leaving the foundations behind only to serve as a base-minimum platform for servitor fleets and drone-swarms working close to the Machina Mundi. Barely any living soul ever lays eyes on this world and if so, only to confirm it remains in its constant, timeless state of a world that once was. The second world, Praxis, was befallen by a more spectacular fate, albeit one going against the eternal plans of the Omnissiah. Under the extreme conditions of its rapidly changing composition and mass, the planet collapsed during the last stages of its harvest. Its initial cracking caused a number of secondary cataclysms, releasing unimaginable amounts of energy still stored within the last vestige of its planetary core, resulting in an unprecedented burst of molten matter and radiation. The great global machinery, once constructed with the intent of reconstituting Praxis as a conduit for stellar energies, was lost during this disastrous event. The cataclysm of Praxis left little more than ashes and slag. By name, the failed world exists merely in records and on outdated star charts anymore. To the Adeptus Mechanicus, it is a shameful stain on the pristine system that should have been Brumbana I. Bleeding World Yomenoi While Praxis and Linnt have already achieved their final fate, the Bleeding World Yomenoi is the active center of the system’s raw resource production, feeding the construction effort with a constant stream of planetary matter. Yomenoi is being methodically deconstructed, its planetary crust cracked and the continental plates lifted into space, for their resources to be refined and become part of the stellar engine. The remaining world has been clad in shrouds of superconducting metal, feeding off the excess energy radiating from the open mantle to carry more and more matter away. Every system and mechanism on and around this world eventually leads to the great matter accelerator, which sends out the constant stream of molten matter to be captured and utilized in the construction effort of Brumbana I. Thonis The toxic world Thonis is a bleeding planet in waiting, being colonized in preparation for the eventual deconstruction. Billions of workers and specialists of the cult will scour this world for any rare resources and artifacts which would otherwise be lost in the global process of cracking the world. Strip-mines dominate the planetary crust and massive construction sites already prepare the first colossal machinery for this world’s inevitable fate. The population of Thonis will live out their lives for many generations yet, but in the end, they will be uplifted from this world and into colonies in space to become the initial working population of the planet-devouring machines. The Fortress Brumbana I Nominally the system capital according to the bureaucracy of the Administratum, the Fortress World Brumbana I has been relegated to the role of a system-defense node by the Cult Mechanicus Cambria. Alongside the Lagrange fortresses, it forms the basis of Brumbana I’s interplanetary defense forces charged with the protection of the inner system. Its population is wholly devoted to providing recruits for specialized regiments of the Imperial Guard and Skitarii Legions lifted from this world for this purpose specifically. Whereas all other terrestrial worlds of the system were destined to be harvested in cataclysmic deconstruction, on Brumbana I the Adeptus Mechanicus chose to enact exemplary precision and calculation as only the certainty of machines can provide. The precious resources of the fortress world were removed thoroughly and with minimal disturbance to the planet’s stability in density and mass, as to avoid involuntary tectonic activity and disruptions of the order imposed by the Omnissiah. Where the crust was hollowed out and the mantle drained, massive grav-generators and energy fields were put into place to maintain planetary stability. In this way, the planet Brumbana I was slowly transformed into a planetary void-fortress, more akin to a wholly artificial structure than any natural celestial body. Castra Lagrange I - III Three Lagrange star forts accompany the Fortress World Brumbana I on its eternal watch over the system. For millennia, they have grown and been reinforced thousand times over. Armored with entire continental plates lifted from their mother world, each resembles more a piece of the disemboweled planet rather than a simple station among the stars. All three fortresses focus on specific tasks, each serving its purpose in maintaining and growing the system-wide defense. Located at key points in the local gravity well, each of the fortresses marks a point of strategic interest for any defending or invading fleet. Holding these positions, the ancient stations have stood since the very first explorators of the Adeptus Mechanicus arrived and in this time, no enemy raid or attempt at insurgency has managed to penetrate this stalwart line of defense. Angoll The heavy giant Angoll is the first non-terrestrial world in the Brumbana I system, presenting a new challenge for the Cult Mechanicus Cambria. Containing vital mass to be utilized in service to the Omnissiah's hallowed vision of the stellar engines, Angoll has gone preparations for its harvest for many centuries. Of all native worlds in the system, it will be last to be sacrificed on the altar of the machine. This is part of an ancient techno-prophecy, engraved in the ancient instructions drafted by the chosen architect of the Stellar Engine. When the time of Angoll's Harvest comes, it will be plunged into the bright, hot well close to its star. To move the heavy giant, the Adeptus Mechanicus has already begun manipulating the cosmic mechanism of its planetary system. Once close to the roiling star, Angoll will boil and burn, it's atmosphere evaporating in the solar wind. Its mass will be captured by interplanetary stations, the atoms reaped for use in the Stellar Engine. This process will, in time, reveal the lower layers of the heavy giant, yielding more precious gases and materials and eventually, the precious, unimaginably exotic matter of its core. This, so the prophecy imagines, will be the impenetrable armor to clad the entire stellar engine. The innermost matter of the system's mightiest world will be stripped, layer by layer, to form the outermost shell of a system reborn in the image of the Omnissiah's design. To achieve this glorious end, the Mechanicus has been sending gargantuan machines deep into the atmosphere of Angoll for millennia, following arcane protocols of preparation. The movement of Angoll is not due for many centuries to come, and yet, the anticipation motivates much of the Cult Mechanicus Cambria in their actions already. Centaur Moons Formerly the moons of Angoll, these celestial bodies were captured and removed from their orbits around the Heavy Giant by colossal grav-engines employed by the Omnissiah. Fueled by the energies produced in the Stellar Engine, this action was an early display of the true potential the star-bound work of the Omnissiah yielded. Each centaur moon is slowly turned into a planetoid machine, consuming their mass to fuel grav-reactors and enhance the moon’s mass artificially to one day initiate the ritual movement of their old master, the giant Angoll. When the time comes, they will each slingshot around the giant and in this moment absorb as much momentum as possible from Angoll’s orbital speed. Many times they will shoot out of the system only to plunge back toward the star and repeat the maneuver until the gradual exchange of orbital, mechanical energies truly affects the path of Angoll to the Omnissiah’s desire. Phenomena Umbra Machina Where the layers of the Machina Mundi overlap, the massive construction of the Adeptus Mechanicus casts already a shadow visible far beyond the boundaries of the system. From the bright shine of a young, strong star, it has changed Brumbana I into a pulsing, flickering beacon of light. It is a symbol for the might of the Omnissiah, slowly extinguishing a star to fuel its eternal furnace. Its power is best measured not in the output the stellar engine provides, but rather in the notable percentage of raw energy siphons from the total heat and light of the star. The shadow, the Umbra Machina, has been said to reveal curious properties within the system’s space, agitating the Crimson Aestus and strange phenomena in the void. Almost as though space itself was alive, it reacts to the absence of natural light and out of unfathomable hiding places emerge nameless things dwelling in the dark. Even on the worlds themselves, the effect is felt when the machine shadow falls and the long night it brings are feared by some of the local population. Of course, legends of primordial horrors and beings from the past walking among the living once more are rooted most certainly in petty superstition. However, some truth may lie at the heart of such reports after all. At the very least it seems highly unlikely the Adeptus Mechanicus would establish an entire force of “night watchers” for no reason, to patrol the artificial terminus at all times. Sidus Tempest Firm in the grasp of the Omnissiah’s cult, the young star Brumbana I quivers and shakes at times under the artificial influx of matter and exotic energies. Celestial tempests of coronal particles and plasma are formed during such phases of stellar activity, rising from deep within the Mundus Machinal structure and breaking free through unfinished sections. Such displace of cosmic power barely impede the construction process of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and serve rather as a recurring test of the stellar engine’s structural integrity and its ability to withstand the storm. To the worker legions and the highest echelons of the priesthood alike, the Sidus Tempests are also reminders of the unfathomable energies yet to be captured and utilized by the Stellar Engine. As with all phenomena in the galaxy, the Cult Mechanicus does not fear them but seeks out ways to utilize the potential instead. Crimson Aestus The southernmost vestiges of the Crimson Aestus break against the Heliosphere of Brumbana I. Whenever the fringe lies in the Umbra Machina, the hot plasmic nebula grows in the absence of the star’s cleansing light. But before long, the rotation of the Machina Mundi turns the shadow away and the new wind sweeps through the cosmic void, pushing the red hot tendrils back into interstellar space. Category:Browse Category:System